Memories Around the Table

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I grew up experiencing MANY family dinners, immediate and extended. For me the table is a place to gather, share and make memories so I agreed instantly when sponsor Dietz & Watson asked me to partner with them to get the word out about their Choose the Table campaign here in Phoenix. Well, that, and I LOVE chef Cullen from Crudo so I knew I wanted one of you to win 😉

Dietz & Watson is kicking off their first dining event in Phoenix, Arizona on June 13th! From those that entered the contest, four randomly selected winners and their guests will get to experience the exclusively curated dinner with Chef Cullen Campbell at Crudo. I hope you saw my posts on Instagram and Facebook and entered because Chef Cullen is AMAZING!

I love any campaign that encourages memory making and sitting around the table for a meal is one of the easiest ways to make memories with your family. I’m starting to realize how my chances will become less and less as my oldest starts High School in the fall. We still get together often with our extended families so I don’t doubt that our family dinners will continue long after high school as well, but they will become much more spaced out.

In our house we eat at the dinner table, the bar/desk/workspace table I set up in the family room, outside and yes, even on the coffee table.

There’s just something about planning, creating and then sitting down to a meal with the people you love most. My boys have done a much better job lately of helping me plan out dinners for the week. They love casseroles, mexican food and anything cheesy! Their latest favorite meal is soup with grilled cheese sandwiches made on the waffle iron.

One night when I was scouring the kitchen we decided to make up this Ham, Gruyere and Caramelized Onion Frittata recipe from the Dietz & Watson site.

I’m so glad we put an importance on family dinners when they were younger. When they started going to school and didn’t want to talk a lot at night we started worst part/best part. We’d each tell each other the worst part of the day and then ended with the best part of the day. Now we don’t really need to pull anything out of them, they’re ready to tell us all about what they did or what they read.

The American College of Pediatricians actually did a study on the importance of family meal time. They found that

Teens who have infrequent family dinners (two or fewer times a week) are twice as likely to use alcohol and four times more likely to use tobacco.

Children ages 9 to 14 who eat regularly with their families are 35% less likely to engage in disordered eating.

Teens who eat more frequently with their families are less likely to experience depression.

Teens who have dinner with their families every day are almost 40% more likely to say they receive mostly As and Bs in school, compared to teens who have dinner with their families infrequently.

Crazy right?! For Dietz & Watson, “family” also extends to the broader community, particularly those without easy access to meals. This year, the brand will be partnering with No Kid Hungry, a national nonprofit campaign that connects kids in need with nutritious food and teaches their families how to cook healthy, affordable meals. Just $1 can feed a child 10 healthy meals (learn more at NoKidHungry.org/onedollar), and Dietz & Watson has generously pledged to donate $150,000 to No Kid Hungry as part of the Choose The Table campaign. That’s 1.5 million meals for children in need!

Do you have family meals frequently? We love including our “family by choice” and try to have monthly if not weekly meals with friends that we consider family. Here’s to more family meals and making memories together around the table! Check out Dietz & Watson on Facebook / Twitter / Instagram / Pinterest to follow more of their campaign this year!

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Allison Waken from All for the Memories is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.